It matters whether a particular union leadership is encouraging or blocking a particular struggle. Socialists are therefore not indifferent to different trends in the union leadership and pay careful attention to them in order to chart their possible impact on our fundamental task, the battle with the employers.
There is an alarming development in Pakistan-administrated Jammu Kashmir (officially called Azad Jammu Kashmir or AJK), where two young activists have been framed with frivolous charges of blasphemy—a grave offence in Pakistan and its held territories. Deputy Chief Organizer of Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation (JKNSF) Arslan Shani and a female activist of the organization, Asma Batool, are being victimized with accusations of blasphemy, with the former on the run and the latter already under police arrest.
A commitment to arming Israel and to providing it impunity to violate international law is a bipartisan pillar of U.S. foreign policy. On that score, Harris is and will be no different from her predecessors. But many ordinary Democrats and activists—including many on the marches outside the convention center—will be encouraged to believe otherwise.
It’s common for people to think about the price of eggs or gasoline when they think about inflation. But aside from prices for commodities like these, which do fluctuate with “supply and demand,” there are the long-term price increases of commodities and services that are essential to everyday life.
The reality is that there is no evidence, no serious reason, to believe that Kamala Harris will have a better or different approach to Palestine than Joe Biden. Fortunately, large sections of the movement understand this very clearly.
Throughout US history, the only way democratic rights have been expanded is through mass struggle—from the Civil War to the labor upsurge of the 1930s; from the Civil Rights movement to the fight for marriage equality—and it’s the only way they can be won today.
The Republicans are the right-wing party akin to the Liberals or the Nationals, and the Democrats are the “center-left” party like the Labor Party. While this is a quick way of sorting out the two main parties in the US bipartisan system, it doesn’t adequately account for what is unique about the Democrats in the taxonomy of political parties across the democratic world.
We are with the people in the streets to defend their vote. We are on the side of their democratic demands. But at the same time, we mark distance with the political leaderships that are trying to manipulate them or use them as “cannon fodder.”
The latest figures available from UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) indicate that the number of children killed in the Gaza Strip has now exceeded 14,000, in addition to the number of missing, wounded, forever disabled, and orphans, which is many times that number.
Harris’ rhetoric has tended to be more progressive than Biden’s, but Biden’s policies are very likely to be Harris’ policies in a future presidency because Harris has never strayed far from them—whatever language she has used.
The country was built on the violence of chattel slavery, the extermination of the native population, and wars of conquest. It fought a bloody civil war that killed the equivalent of seven million people, in today’s population.
The people of Britain wanted to oust the Tories at any cost. In this regard, they cast a vote of hatred and disgust against the Tories rather than a vote of hope and optimism for Labour. The situation is the inevitable result of Tory policies over the last 14 years, which have desperately worsened the conditions of toiling Britons.
The far right has been pushed back by popular mobilization—now we must implement the program of the New Popular Front!
This “genocide in real time” has been on the world’s iPhone and TV screens. Israel has never been more isolated among the capitalist states and their international institutions. The Palestine solidarity demonstrations have been the largest anti-imperialist movement since the youth radicalization of the late 1960s.
Starmer’s huge majority in parliament may give the illusion that he is running an all-powerful government, at least for a period. However, the election results reveal that the social basis for such a government is weak.
